Jennifer. Residence of Grief. Viktor Khorunzhy

the middle of the corridor, the nurse stopped in front of one of the doors and pushed it open.

      “Come in!” she nodded Jenny in.

      The girl stepped across the threshold… and instantly found herself at gunpoint of four pairs of patients’ eyes that had switched their attention to her.

      On narrow hospital beds, in the ward with walls just as grayish-blue as in the corridor, she caught a sight of two young girls and two lads – to her own great surprise. Some of them were sitting and some were lying. All of them were wearing green hospital pajamas with loose sleeves.

      “Here’s your bed,” the nurse grumbled, pointing at an empty bunk near the only window in this room.

      Five old beds with small bedside chests next to each of them made the entire furnishing. Jenny approached the empty bunk. It had a thin striped mattress, a shabby blanket and a pillow that had already seen its glory days…

      The nurse had already turned to leave when the girl made up her mind to stop her, having uttered humbly:

      “I’m sorry… But isn’t that supposed to be a women's ward? Why are there men here?”

      “You are no men and women here, you are patients,” the nurse snapped and sailed proudly outside the door like some oversized ship.

      Having sat on the edge of the bed, Jenny squeezed her eyes shut tightly. “God, let it all be just a nightmare,” she asked inly, forcing herself to swallow up her tears. “It’s so simple for you to make one small, tiny miracle…”

      But, of course, no miracle happened – having opened her eyes, Jennifer saw she was still in that somewhat gloomy ward with high ceiling and cold walls, in the company of people just as cheated of their happiness as she was.

      Chapter 8

      New Neighborhood

      “Who are you?”

      The sounded of a voice in breathless silence made Jenny shudder. It seemingly belonged to a short young girl – perhaps, even her age-mate – with tumbled black hair and deep dark eyes that seemed quite sensible to Jennifer.

      “I’m Jenny,” she replied.

      Instead of an answer, her ward-mate uttered a short laugh and wound her head round sharply.

      “I’m not interested in your name, I asked – who are you?”

      The question somewhat puzzled Jenny. How should she answer it? How else could she tell about herself? And what had she had of her old life, except her own name?

      “I’m an ordinary girl, Jennifer Parker.”

      The black-haired patient snickered once more, as if she had heard something funny. Her laughter sounded and faded abruptly, but her face remained absolutely serious.

      “An ordinary girl! It doesn’t work like that… Or else you wouldn’t have got here. For example, I sell flowers, uncommon flowers!” Her eyes flashed with feverish fire for a moment, and then instantly faded, bringing back their previous thoughtfully sad expression. “Only no one buys my flowers, because everybody here are paupers… Paupers, paupers, paupers!” she suddenly screamed, gave a wave of her hand and turned to the wall. It seemed the girl was at the edge of bursting into tears any moment.

      “Stop weighing her down with your flowers!” the lad from the bunk standing in the middle against the opposite wall snapped. “Or else she will think we all here are mad indeed,” he added quietly and Jennifer shifted her surprised gaze at him.

      Indeed, the lad didn’t seem mad at all: he looked at Jenny with calm and sensible eyes.

      He was averagely tall and skinny; his straight dark hair was falling on his forehead in a long fringe. He could have been called handsome, if it hadn’t been for something elusively weird in his face. Only after she had a closer look at him, Jennifer realized that the right half of his face didn’t quite agree with the left one and looked slightly skewed. But that defect wasn’t too repellent at all.

      “Are you not? Are you… normal?” she wondered quietly, risking to cause any kind of response with her indelicate question – all in all, she was at a clinic for mental patients.

      The patient that had called herself the uncommon flowers seller and had been going to cry a moment ago turned to everybody and burst into laughing again.

      “She thinks we are mad!” the girl exclaimed.

      Meanwhile, the lad didn’t give any notice to her yelling.

      “Well, perhaps you wouldn’t call us absolutely normal.”

      He smiled slightly and Jenny instantly felt good about herself: for if a person could speak ironically about oneself, it meant one was definitely not a psycho!

      “But we are no crazier than all other people. How do you think, why are you here?” the lad’s stare didn’t seem unpleasant to Jennifer. On the contrary, there was something easeful in it.

      The girl shrugged her shoulders.

      “Probably, because I was left alone. And no one believes me…”

      “Alone? Have you been left alone as well?” the other girl suddenly joined the conversation, though so far she was indifferently sitting on her bed without even looking at the talking patients. “Have you been abandoned?”

      Jenny noticed the girl having an especially musical voice: the words that came off her lips were so heartfelt, as if she was reading a poem. The girl was short, a bit plump, with soft dark-blond hair that hardly reached her shoulders and beautiful grey eyes. She was probably the oldest among the patients of the ward.

      “I wasn’t abandoned. My parents, they… They died,” Jenny uttered in a small voice and lowered her eyes. Today was the first time she had said the sinister truth out loud.

      “They left you… poor thing!” The grey-eyed girl exclaimed and suddenly flung to Jennifer with a hug.

      Being slightly taken aback by so blusterous sentiment from a stranger, Jenny still allowed her to hug herself.

      Having got enough of hugging, the ward-mate sat beside her. Except for such emotionality, she didn’t seem crazy as well.

      “Then welcome to our small society!” the lad smiled again. “We’re also here because no one believes us. I’m Ryan. This is Emma,” he nodded at the girl sitting beside Jenny.

      “Emma,” she affirmed.

      “Sofia,” the black-haired girl nodded somewhat ceremoniously from her bunk in the corner and seemed normal again.

      “And this is Justin,” having stood up, Ryan approached the second guy. He was sitting motionless, having fixed his eyes on the window.

      His bunk stood opposite Jenny’s bed, only on the other side. However, the narrow state-owned bed was obviously too small for a brawny, formidable body of a young man. Broad shoulders, knots of muscles the hospital pajamas were unable to hide, short crew cut of his fair hair… The lad seemed an enchanted hero that had been turned into a helpless patient by some evil sorcery.

      “Hey, Justin, turn to us! Or else our new ward-mate might think you are being rude,” Ryan put a hand on his shoulder.

      As if having come to himself, the young man turned his face towards Jenny. Having shot a quick glance at her, he suddenly melted into background. A confused, timid, almost childlike smile appeared on his broad and calm face. Having blinked, the hulk cast down his eyes and mumbled something resembling “hello.”

      Having probably got what he wanted from the lad, Ryan returned to his place contentedly.

      “Don’t be afraid, he’s kind. And also normal. Only he’s very shy with girls and sometimes forgets who he is. But we remind him of that – right, Justin?”

      He only nodded and looked at Jenny with the edge of his eye again. Now he didn’t seem threatening to her despite all his hidden strength. Admittedly, just as other patients of the ward eighteen. The girl inly sighed with relief. “It seems everything is not as bad as it could